the_chief:Deathfrogg: The reason for this shiat is the fact that they don't circulate much fresh air into those places. Its recirculated, filtered but not necessarily sterilized air. Maybe they oughta start thinking about why these allegedly super sterile facilities have the highest rates of collateral infection of practically anywhere including slaughterhouses. Friend of mine works in a kosher slaughterhouse that isn't really that clean of a place, and he hasn't been sick in 20 years as far as I know.

Yeah, it's "bad air." Brilliant.

Actually, in many cases it is. Research the need for positive rooms for burn victims or negative rooms for patients with TB or Pnuemonia, along with the filtering and air exchange requirements.

Not so CSB: One time I showed up at the University of Kansas physical plant, they had labs that were working with many various nasty animal diseases, some of which could easily transfer to humans. Sitting on the ground outside the physical plant was a stack of used bag-in/bag-out HEPA filters that was easily ten feet wide by four feet tall, some sitting there for so long that the bags had begun degrading from the weather. These were the filters that were supposed to contain whatever of these germs became airborne and passed through the exhaust, to be destroyed after they were full by incinerating as medical waste; yet they had apparently been stockpiling them outside their offices for years.

I know nothing about medicine, but I am thinking out loud here. We are humans we weaponize and/or perv over everything..we know viruses are lethal farkers...so could we not force a few of them to accept their human overlords and attack bacteria and other viruses that resist.

Old tech. The russkies were doing topical bacteriophage treatment to radiation burns for Chernobyl victims.

Oh, it's much older than that. It was being pioneered from the 1920's, and the research ended abruptly when commercial antibiotics became available. But it's worth revisiting now that multi-resistant bacteria have evolved.

Yes, we should keep active cultures running with evolving phages for each hospital. Who needs nanotechnology that always seem 20 years away when you can just hijack phage?

Oxygen_Thief:I know nothing about medicine, but I am thinking out loud here. We are humans we weaponize and/or perv over everything..we know viruses are lethal farkers...so could we not force a few of them to accept their human overlords and attack bacteria and other viruses that resist.

Earlier in this very thread is discussion of how this research started about a century ago, and although it was ignored for 60 years while antibiotics were the answer to everything, research about using viruses ('bacteriophage') for this purpose is now producing some positive results.

Of course, we know better than to expect this to be a perfect solution for evermore (just as antibiotics aren't), but it could help a lot.

It happens. According to my hubs, theres an entire unit (formerly the burn unit) at the hospital where he did his residency that is sealed off. Not just to the public. But literally sealed off. They even closed & scrubbed it down entirely before reopening only to find the same whatever-it-was still came back in the patients a few times. After going through this cycle a few times they just gave up and it remains sealed today.

Genta:doesnt copper or some other element kill bacteria on contact? make hospital doorknobs, bed rails, table tops etc have a layer of copper.....

already being done?

"In addition, the EPA has approved a long list of antimicrobial copper products made from these alloys, such as bedrails, handrails, over-bed tables, sinks, faucets, door knobs, toilet hardware, computer keyboards, health club equipment, shopping cart handles, etc.... Copper doorknobs are used by hospitals to reduce the transfer of disease"

From your article:Some 355 copper alloys were proven to kill more than 99.9% of disease-causing bacteria within just two hours when cleaned regularly

.1% bugs remaining when the bugs live in counts of the1.0x10^9 to1.0x10^16 is what exactly?

Mum's a former RN from England. She's born and raised from Scotland, where it was discovered that washing your hands and maintaining a clean environment tended to drastically increase chances of survival from surgery. Hygiene, in a hospital, is everything.

Joseph Lister and Alexander Fleming are part of her national heritage. So imagine the fun when she and my Dad emigrated here (along with a very young Znuh), only to find that nobody in the damn hospital in NYC were washing their hands before looking at patients.

Hospitals today seem like a crapshoot with hygiene. Some are fantastic, others are more like your little sister or brother, sneaking in a good dig at their nose before touching something else.

ragekage:Aussie_As: Deathfrogg: The reason for this shiat is the fact that they don't circulate much fresh air into those places. Its recirculated, filtered but not necessarily sterilized air. Maybe they oughta start thinking about why these allegedly super sterile facilities have the highest rates of collateral infection of practically anywhere including slaughterhouses. Friend of mine works in a kosher slaughterhouse that isn't really that clean of a place, and he hasn't been sick in 20 years as far as I know.

The article is about antibiotic resistant bacteria. Your friend in the slaughterhouse would certainly encounter a lot of bacteria, but so do most people. As none of the cattle your friend is dealing with are likely to be sick with some sort of super-immune bacterial disease, he is unlikely to run into the bug in TFA. Hospitals, on the other hand, are where most people wind up when their usual course of antibiotics is not working. They are much, much more likely to have resistant bugs than a slaughterhouse. That said, I'm still concerned by the high use of antibiotics in agriculture.

The hospital I work at, since it's a teaching hospital and university, infection control got the bright idea to swab all the ED staff's noses to take a check of MRSA colonization rates.

They'll never do that again, I promise you that.

I can't decide which is more disconcerting: that you have a whole "staff" devoted to Erectile Dysfunction, or that they found so much nasty stuff in those dicksniffers' swabs that they never want to do it again.

megalynn44:It happens. According to my hubs, theres an entire unit (formerly the burn unit) at the hospital where he did his residency that is sealed off. Not just to the public. But literally sealed off. They even closed & scrubbed it down entirely before reopening only to find the same whatever-it-was still came back in the patients a few times. After going through this cycle a few times they just gave up and it remains sealed today.

Eatin' Queer Fetuses for Jesus:ragekage: Aussie_As: Deathfrogg:....I can't decide which is more disconcerting: that you have a whole "staff" devoted to Erectile Dysfunction, or that they found so much nasty stuff in those dicksniffers' swabs that they never want to do it again.

ladyfortuna:megalynn44: It happens. According to my hubs, theres an entire unit (formerly the burn unit) at the hospital where he did his residency that is sealed off. Not just to the public. But literally sealed off. They even closed & scrubbed it down entirely before reopening only to find the same whatever-it-was still came back in the patients a few times. After going through this cycle a few times they just gave up and it remains sealed today.

They should burn it to the ground and salt the ashes, at that point.

I am a strong supporter of this approach. I think (say) 3 grounds need to be selected, you build a hospital on one out of a paper type substance (thinking those luvly Japanese houses), use the hospital for a specified time, then burn the whole thing to the ground and move to your next site. Leave the first site fallow for awhile, then turn it into a park, before building a hospital on it again at some pt in the future. Repeat.

Disposable hospitals are the trick - of course the penny pinchers will probably keep the first disposable hospital waaay past its termination date.

ragekage:Aussie_As: Deathfrogg: The reason for this shiat is the fact that they don't circulate much fresh air into those places. Its recirculated, filtered but not necessarily sterilized air. Maybe they oughta start thinking about why these allegedly super sterile facilities have the highest rates of collateral infection of practically anywhere including slaughterhouses. Friend of mine works in a kosher slaughterhouse that isn't really that clean of a place, and he hasn't been sick in 20 years as far as I know.

The article is about antibiotic resistant bacteria. Your friend in the slaughterhouse would certainly encounter a lot of bacteria, but so do most people. As none of the cattle your friend is dealing with are likely to be sick with some sort of super-immune bacterial disease, he is unlikely to run into the bug in TFA. Hospitals, on the other hand, are where most people wind up when their usual course of antibiotics is not working. They are much, much more likely to have resistant bugs than a slaughterhouse. That said, I'm still concerned by the high use of antibiotics in agriculture.

The hospital I work at, since it's a teaching hospital and university, infection control got the bright idea to swab all the ED staff's noses to take a check of MRSA colonization rates.

the_chief:Deathfrogg: The reason for this shiat is the fact that they don't circulate much fresh air into those places. Its recirculated, filtered but not necessarily sterilized air. Maybe they oughta start thinking about why these allegedly super sterile facilities have the highest rates of collateral infection of practically anywhere including slaughterhouses. Friend of mine works in a kosher slaughterhouse that isn't really that clean of a place, and he hasn't been sick in 20 years as far as I know.

Yeah, it's "bad air." Brilliant.

apparently... it is,...per below anecdote:

shiattynick:Deathfrogg: The reason for this shiat is the fact that they don't circulate much fresh air into those places. Its recirculated, filtered but not necessarily sterilized air. Maybe they oughta start thinking about why these allegedly super sterile facilities have the highest rates of collateral infection of practically anywhere including slaughterhouses. Friend of mine works in a kosher slaughterhouse that isn't really that clean of a place, and he hasn't been sick in 20 years as far as I know.

Selling and setting up equipment that maintained safe barriers in hospitals and laboratories was my job for 11 years; I can't begin to tell you how many hospitals just want to monitor containment as opposed to actually create containment, same goes for many labs as well. It should be priority number one in these types of facilities, but you know what really is the first priority? Money.I can't begin to count the number of times that I had an isolation unit or BSL lab in alarm that containment was not being maintained; which I found out through some nurse or worker calling me from the number on my monitor wondering why it was beeping. Quite often the calls came from maintenance after maintenance just shut the system down and called me when they got around to it. Roughly one half of these alarms were due to the fact that in order to maintain the proper polarity of air in the room, the fans must run at a relatively high speed all of the time, assuring the proper amount of air exchange in the room. This all requires heating and/or cooling of fresh air, only to be exhausted frequently as a constant process; not surprisingly, this is very expensive and when the penny pinchers see their bills skyrocketing they order maintenance to ramp the fans down to previous levels, resulting in loss of containment.This always created a big circle at hospitals, the people in charge of safety knew that containment was necessary, and got the right equipment ordered to protect everyone; then when t ...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that hospital-associated infections, from all types of bacteria, cause or contribute to thousands of deaths each year. (new window)

Like I said. Burn. Salt. Maybe some kind of copper spray for good measure.

/shudder

I recall my final year molecular biology class from my uni days (mid 90's). I wrote a lit review paper about the issue of bacterial DNA being found in antibiotics. As antibiotics, or the precursors thereof, are a product of bacterial fermentation, the bacteria which produce these chemicals are themselves resistant to their antibiotic properties. It follows that the DNA which makes the antibiotic-resistance gene/s is in these bacteria. And as bacterial DNA is (or at least was in 1996) frequently found in antibiotics, it follows that it's theoretically possible that antibiotic resistance genes could find their way into the very bacteria the antibiotic is trying to kill having travelled into the host in the antibiotics. It would be very unlikely, but if enough people take enough pills to kill enough bacteria, it could happen.

I've never worked as a scientist but I'm really glad I studied that shiat. It's fascinating.

Dahnkster:Nosocomial infections will increase every year. Indiscriminate antibiotics in food supply and farm animals adds to the resistance. Most of these are gram negative infections. Take a culture from a hospital bed or a trauma stretcher. Beds in particular are poorly sanitized. Hand washing between patients is also a known cause. You'd be wise to insist on aseptic technique during dressing changes and wound care measures... now scrub my tater.

What about medical personnel wearing their scrubs outside the hospital? Does it have an impact?

There are several doctors with children in our daughter's kindergarten class. At 8:00AM, these folks drop of their kids, hang out at the play structure while awaiting the bell to line up...and they're wearing scrubs. Surely bacteria from the kids, from other parents, from the ground, from the playground, etc., manage to find their way onto those scrubs. Then these doctors go to work, already covered in bacteria and whatnot.

The local farm co-op sells 250mg penicillin tablets in bottles of different amounts. It says it's for "fish" and not for human consumption. People use it on their dogs or other animals that get an infection and need antibiotics. You can of course get it in a liquid kind you can inject. Farmers usually use this on their cattle/sheep or whatever. I gave my dog the 250mg pills 2x a day for 10 days last month when it got an infected sore. I cleaned it, disinfected it, and bandaged it every day until it was healed.

I know a lot of people that buy the antibiotics and keep them at home for when they get sick. I'm sure the "fish" pills are perfectly safe, but penicillin isn't the best treatment for many kinds of illnesses. That's why you go to the doctor and he decides what kind you need based on what kind of infection you have. They don't care what's wrong they think taking the pills will fix it. You got a stuffy nose in the middle of allergy season? Take some penicillin! Feeling a little under the weather? Take some more!! They don't seem to understand or care that 9 times out of 10 they don't have an infection and are taking something that is not going to help them at all. In fact the antibiotics will kill the good bacteria in your intestines and give you some giant mighty shiats. They get the shiats from too much antibiotics so they take some more.

I don't know how to fix the problem. You can't take the medicine away from the farmers. They can't call a vet everytime a cow or horse gets sick. It would bankrupt them. Many farmers over use them but most don't. I don't know a way to stop idiots buying them so cheap in bulk and keeping them in the fridge until they feel sick and start taking them.

A lot of people go to the doctor demanding antibiotics every time they get sick. The medicines being available to everyone who walks in, is a much much larger problem. These people are taking an unknown amount for a million different symptoms.

I keep them around in case my dogs get an infection. The vet said if I cut them in 1/4 I could give them to the cat also if it gets sick. I've had the cat 15 years and it hasn't needed any yet.

So how do we keep people from self diagnosing and buying these medications over the counter and using them when it's not needed. In 50 years are we going to look back and see that this behavior caused so many resistant bugs and millions of people died?

My mother in law died of MRSA. She got it while she was getting chemo for non hodgkins lymphoma. The cancer was taken care of. She never really got well because of the MRSA. She kept getting infections and going into the hospital. The cancer had been in remission for 2 years, but the infection just ate at her. She got c-diff because of all the antibiotics they were giving her to treat the infection. She ended up dying on Christmas Eve when it went everywhere and she got septic. They couldn't do anything for her. Being there and watching someone die is a horrible thing to go through, especially when it was something that could have been avoided if people didn't overuse and misuse antibiotics. If it wasn't for the infection taking hold when her immune system was weak during chemo she would still be here. My wife and I cared for her during those 2 years and since we have healthy immune systems the infection couldn't get a hold in our systems. Instead she died like so many others have. For no reason other than people misusing antibiotics and it causing superbugs. We were both tested for MRSA after her death on the advice of her doctors. We didn't have any trace of it. So far most of the "superbugs" can't really do a lot of damage to people with healthy immune systems. How long until they change again to where they can infect and kill anyone even if they have a healthy immune system? Cancer is a biatch and so are superbugs.

I don't see how anyone can argue against evolution. If not for all the other evidence, then for what we have seen bacteria do the past 80 years by evolving and gaining resistance to the medications we are using to treat them. It's all laid out for everyone to see in black and white.

I have a farked up immune system. Old age won't kill me. It'll be something like the common cold. I have medical masks in my locker so if a coworker comes in with a cold, I can at least try to protect myself some.

These anti-bacterial soaps and hand sanitizers are not helping things. The immune system needs to be exposed to bacteria and virii in order to develop a resistance. First world problems: We'll be killed off because we over sanitize ourselves and a measly little bug like the common cold will come in and wipe us out.

Znuh:Mum's a former RN from England. She's born and raised from Scotland, where it was discovered that washing your hands and maintaining a clean environment tended to drastically increase chances of survival from surgery. Hygiene, in a hospital, is everything.

Joseph Lister and Alexander Fleming are part of her national heritage. So imagine the fun when she and my Dad emigrated here (along with a very young Znuh), only to find that nobody in the damn hospital in NYC were washing their hands before looking at patients.

Hospitals today seem like a crapshoot with hygiene. Some are fantastic, others are more like your little sister or brother, sneaking in a good dig at their nose before touching something else.

Read the work of Atul Gawande; Better, Complications and his latest, "The checklist Manifesto"

the_chief:Deathfrogg: The reason for this shiat is the fact that they don't circulate much fresh air into those places. Its recirculated, filtered but not necessarily sterilized air. Maybe they oughta start thinking about why these allegedly super sterile facilities have the highest rates of collateral infection of practically anywhere including slaughterhouses. Friend of mine works in a kosher slaughterhouse that isn't really that clean of a place, and he hasn't been sick in 20 years as far as I know.

megalynn44:It happens. According to my hubs, theres an entire unit (formerly the burn unit) at the hospital where he did his residency that is sealed off. Not just to the public. But literally sealed off. They even closed & scrubbed it down entirely before reopening only to find the same whatever-it-was still came back in the patients a few times. After going through this cycle a few times they just gave up and it remains sealed today.

We had a room like that here. A university where we used to do drug discovery and used cell lines and bacterial fermentation. They tried everything. Finally they put a canister that contains cesium 137 to irradiate the room. It took 5 years before it came back sterile and they could use it again.

CSB: A couple months ago, I had an unpleasant gastro thing going on. Not enough to go to a hospital, bad enough to go to a specialist to make sure I wasn't dying of cancer. He told me the germs are getting smarter. Took me nearly a month to get over that illness completely.

Ended up not getting any prescription meds for that, as it was already starting to subside by the time I saw the doctor ($125 well spent there). It was nice to know he was responsible and doesn't throw antibiotics at everyone just to make them happy.

Deathfrogg:The reason for this shiat is the fact that they don't circulate much fresh air into those places. Its recirculated, filtered but not necessarily sterilized air. Maybe they oughta start thinking about why these allegedly super sterile facilities have the highest rates of collateral infection of practically anywhere including slaughterhouses. Friend of mine works in a kosher slaughterhouse that isn't really that clean of a place, and he hasn't been sick in 20 years as far as I know.

It might have something to do with not wanting to put your hands in or anywhere close to your face when covered in cow crap, blood, gore, and God knows what else.

a2jk:Zarquon's Flat Tire: I once got a 2 year staph infection from Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. But after that cleared up I was pleased with their work.

Pennicillin allergy

I, too have an allergy to penicillin, and have been fighting staph infections for a month now. The last one appears to just now be healed. Bactrim, then Z-Pac, and just finished a round of Doxycycline. I had 4 sites under my arm and in my side that had to be lanced and drained with wicks. Miserable. I'm supposing I got it from a lake while camping. It's all I can imagine. I overheard someone at dinner talking about his recent bout with it, too. The nurse told me she has seen many more of these than usual lately. That's very encouraging. I hope you have it beaten.

Makes me wonder what I'll do when I need a good antibiotic. Penicillin allergy, as well as Bactrum, Suprax, and sulfas.

Flakeloaf:He Who Shall Not Be Named:I don't know how to fix the problem.

A lot of people go to the doctor demanding antibiotics every time they get sick.

Travel back in time to 1960, prescribe these people a punch in the balls. Problem fixed.

My completely-non-scientific best guess is that this would substantially reduce the problem. However I suspect the majority of folks demanding antibiotics are women, particularly mothers. A nipple cripple rather than punch to the balls?

FizixJunkee:Dahnkster: Nosocomial infections will increase every year. Indiscriminate antibiotics in food supply and farm animals adds to the resistance. Most of these are gram negative infections. Take a culture from a hospital bed or a trauma stretcher. Beds in particular are poorly sanitized. Hand washing between patients is also a known cause. You'd be wise to insist on aseptic technique during dressing changes and wound care measures... now scrub my tater.

What about medical personnel wearing their scrubs outside the hospital? Does it have an impact?

There are several doctors with children in our daughter's kindergarten class. At 8:00AM, these folks drop of their kids, hang out at the play structure while awaiting the bell to line up...and they're wearing scrubs. Surely bacteria from the kids, from other parents, from the ground, from the playground, etc., manage to find their way onto those scrubs. Then these doctors go to work, already covered in bacteria and whatnot.

Everyone is covered in bacteria. The issue is the pathogenic antibiotic-resistant bacteria. If the kids at the school seem healthy, chances are they aren't passing on the problem bugs to the doctors in their scrubs.

That said, I think the doctors could do better, but the real problems are much more likely to arise once they're in the hospital than in a school-yard. Or even a slaughterhouse, as has been already discussed in this thread.

Good point. This problem would be reduced (but not entirely solved) if there was a systematic process for handing out antibiotics. ie get all doctors to start with antibiotic a, if that doesn't work prescribe antibiotic b, then c etc. As it works, pharmaceutical companies who are developing antibiotic f in this chain would not make a return on their billion-dollar-plus investment in developing their product. So their lobbyists demand a free-for-all market no matter what the consequences for public health. So guess who wins: patients or shareholders? Hint: it's shareholders.